Was the Iraq invasion "wildly" popular in 2003 ?

[jaysunb]

I keep hearing the talking heads say how popular the invasion idea and it's subsequent follow through was.
But,I remember marching down Hollywood Blvd and the streets of downtown Los Angeles (in the rain) with thousands of others here and nationwide,against invading Iraq, and now there seems to be a total rewrite of that history.

I'm sure there must be someone here at DU that can find the polling data that reflects what was going on at that time...I hope so cause I'm beginning to question my own memory.

Am I in the early stages of Alzheimer's or has 40 years of smoking weed caused those "long term memory problems " I've warned about ?

[rucky]

1. To the tune of 70%...

OPPOSING it, leading up to Shockenaw.

[rinsd]

2. Here's a link to pretty much every Iraq opinion poll

You will have to go thru the various pages to get back to 2003.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

[AtomicKitten]

3. Popular? No, it was sold falsely to some and shoved down the throats of the rest.

There is some wicked revisionist history going on out there!

[blm]

4. Wildly, no. But popular enough to be distorted, yes.

There was opportunity before Bush's invasion to urge that he not - that he wait until the weapon inspectors gave REASON to invade as expected.

At that point is when Bill Clinton, Hillary, and every Dem lawmaker who voted for IWR should have taken the time to PUBLICLY state that case - Only a few did. Those who didn't and stayed with Bush on his decisions throughout 2003 and 2004 made life difficult for all those Dems who were criticizing and opposing Bush's decisions.

[jaysunb]

8. And, the "distortion" continues....

[Bicoastal]

5. Oh come on, you remember!

It was shortly after those 4 Iraqis went on American TV and got the highest ratings in history, causing more groups of Iraqis to get into the act. Suddenly EVERYONE wanted to dress Iraqi, and use Iraqi slang, if only to piss off their parents...

Oh wait. That was the BRITISH invasion. That was wildly popular.

The Iraqi invasion? Ehhhhh....not so much.

[youthere]

15. Oh my gawd...

I just shot eggs out my nose when I read that.

[Lisa]

18. DUzy over here! (I hope the compilers see this one!) n/t

[acmavm]

6. Sure was. With so many people that I would never have ever dreamed

would have felt the way they did. I lost friends. I truly will not speak to a few people ever again. And at times that almost includes my own mother.

[damntexdem]

7. Unfortunately, it was.

And there was much drive-by abuse for those of us out protesting before and after the invasion.

How times have changed.

[K Gardner]

9. I remember not being able to find ONE sane person opposed to it to talk to...

OFF the internet, of course. It was like living in an alternate universe.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

10. It was 50-50 until right before the war. Once is appeared inevitable support went up to about 70%

[Uncle Joe]

11. It was definitely more popular then, because after 9/11 there was more blood lust in the land,

and the media sold it to the American People, regardless of the evidence against Saddam having anything to do with Al Qaueda or 9/11. The voices of reason that did cry out against the folly of this and how it would only strengthen Al Qaueda and hurt the chances of getting Bin Laden because it was diverting precious resources, and damage our national standing among our allies were largely ignored or marginalized. Al Gore's speech against it and the valid, common sense points he made, might as well have been a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it for all the media cared.

[Imagevision]

12. Absolutely, CNN,MSNBC,ABC,FOX sold mucho popcorn with this event...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. No you are not

We protested on the courthouse square in Jasper AR, and we had exactly 6 nutcases who either rode around with pro war signs, spat on us, or who had their kids run up to us and say that Bush was the Second Coming of Christ. If memory serves (and it hasn't been impaired with smoking anything), we had a lot of folks stop and take flyers to write our conman about the war.

[karynnj]

14. Once we invaded - yes

In the run up, the percent of people against invading moved up in late 2002 - early 2003, but I think remained under 40%. I protested with my teens in NYC and DC - a weird echo of the 60s for me.

Here are 2 polls (they copy badly):


CBS News/New York Times Poll. April 20-24, 2007. N=1,052 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults). RV = registered voters


"Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?"
(date, approve, disapprove, undecided)
5/03 72 20 8
3/26-27/03 69 27 4
3/24/03 71 24 5
3/23/03 75 22 3
3/22/03 72 23 5
3/20-21/03 69 25 6
3/15-16/03 55 41 4
3/7-9/03 51 42 7
3/4-5/03 54 39 7
2/24-25/03 52 44 4
2/10-12/03 53 42 5

This is near the bottom of this link:
http://pollingreport.com/iraq4.htm

The 72% was a high. (Note the question - it ends up becoming murky as people became both against the war and others like McCain thinking Bush only did a bad job,.

Here's another that doesn't cover the pre-war period:
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. April 18-22, 2007. N=1,508 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (for all adults). RV = registered voters

Do you think the U.S. made the right decision or the wrong decision in using military force against Iraq?"


.
(date, right decision, wrong decision)

4/18-22/07 45 47 8
3/21-25/07 43 49 8
2/7-11/07 40 54 6
1/10-15/07 40 51 9
12/6-10/06 42 51 7
11/9-12/06 41 51 8
10/17-22/06 43 47 10


9/21 - 10/4/06 45 47 8
6/14-19/06 49 44 7
4/7-16/06 47 46 7
3/8-12/06 45 49 6
2/1-5/06 51 44 5
1/4-8/06 45 47 8
12/7-11/05 47 48 5
10/6-10/05 44 50 6
9/8-11/05 49 44 7
7/13-17/05 49 44 7
6/8-12/05 47 45 8
2/16-21/05 47 47 6
1/5-9/05 51 44 5

12/1-16/04 49 44 7
10/27-30/04 RV 48 41 11
10/15-19/04 46 42 12
10/1-3/04 50 39 11
9/8-13/04 53 39 8
8/5-10/04 53 41 6
7/8-18/04 52 43 5
6/3-13/04 55 38 7
5/3-9/04 51 42 7
4/21-25/04 54 37 9
4/1-4/04 57 35 8
3/17-21/04 55 39 6
2/24-29/04 60 32 8
2/11-16/04 56 39 5
1/6-11/04 65 30 5
12/19/03 - 1/4/04 62 28 10
12/15-17/03 67 26 7
10/03 60 33 7
9/03 63 31 6
7/14 - 8/5/03 63 30 7
6/20 - 7/2/03 67 24 9
4/10-16/03 74 19 7
4/8-9/03 74 19 7
4/2-7/03 72 20 8
3/28 - 4/1/03 69 25 6
3/25-27/03 74 21 5
3/23-24/03 74 21 5
3/20-22/03 71 22 7
http://pollingreport.com/iraq5.htm

[jaysunb]

16. Thank you.

kinda paints a different picture of what I keep hearing here lately.

[karynnj]

17. I think many forget that they may be in a

very blue environment and project that others are the same. We see it in posts here - with people who think that Kerry should have had an easy win in 2004. There were 41% saying the invasion was wrong, 48% right. When you consider that some of the wrong were Pat Buchanan conservatives - you can see he needed to capture a far % of those who were for the war, but trusted him more.

[jaysunb]

19. I totally agree

I can remember the shock I felt when I ventured out of So California to the mid west. Around here, there was hardly ever a hint that anyone felt any different than I did, but in Ohio, Iowa, Oregon and a few other places, I quickly relized I was in the minority of opinion.

[gulliver]

20. It was just bandwagon and demagoguery.

The people didn't support or oppose anything. The majority just chose the card they were supposed to choose. We don't say the old lady who lost her life's savings to a scummy con artist "supported" his "investment strategies" before they went south. We just say she was conned.

Don't -- please don't -- give a second thought to the bullshit that the people supported little Junior and his band of idiots. The people were defrauded. They feel it; we know it. Any other framing is a lie.